This is not quite true. Gibson used every trick in the Hollywood movie playbook for manipulating emotions cranked up to 11. The close-ups. The emotional glances and dramatic pauses in action. Slow motion. The high-drama music score never took a rest. These were all kicked into high gear for the whole movie, even when Jesus was doing something ordinary like carpentry.

My emotional defenses were up the whole movie because I could tell Gibson was trying to manipulate them. I watched in a state of cold detatchment.

I would have liked a realistic movie about Jesus that showed what it was really like to be around Jesus, laughing with the apostles and whatnot. Instead, every Jesus movie ever made took itself too seriously.

P.S. I thought Jackson’s Lord of the Rings did the same thing, only not quite so over-the-top.